South Africa, like many countries, has high numbers of learners who do not complete secondary schooling. This reduces these young people's chances of finding work or of earning a better salary. It is thus important to understand the factors that contribute to high school dropout. In the study reported on here we investigated the factors that…

Black women in South Africa (SA) face multiple and interlocking systems of oppression every-day; among them gender-based violence, economic marginalization, and the legacy of racialized and gendered subjugation under centuries of colonization, followed by the apartheid regime. On the heels of South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994, the…

Researchers are often skeptical of sexual behavior surveys: Respondents may lie or forget details of their intimate lives, and interviewers may exercise authority in how they capture responses. We use data from a 2010-2011 cross-sectional sexual behavior survey in rural South Africa to explore who says what to whom about their sexual lives.…

Lynn Dalrymple is a pioneer in the field of communication about HIV and AIDS in South Africa. Her work has influenced practitioners, researchers and thinkers in South Africa and beyond. This review explores Dalrymple's background as a teacher in the rural areas of Zululand in South Africa, and how she came to apply theatre theory for one of the…

"I go to the hospital with my mother when she is sick. I can't go to school and leave her in so much pain. I won't concentrate." Millions of adolescents live with AIDS-affected parents or primary caregivers. Little is known about educational impacts of living in an AIDS-affected home, or of acting as a "young carer" in the…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the role of a small-scale project around storytelling as a form of informal education in five health clinics in rural areas of the Limpopo Province in South Africa. The aim of the project is to decrease the stigma around HIV/AIDS and to start an open dialogue in local communities about the disease.…

In 2006, De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines in South Africa entered into a partnership, with the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communications to implement an HIV and AIDS Community Training Partnership Program (CTPP), initially in five diamond mining areas in three provinces of South Africa. The aim of CTPP was to improve HIV…

The partnerships, especially university-community partnerships, that sustain globally networked learning environments often face challenges in mobilizing research to empower local communities to effect change. This article examines these challenges by describing a university-community partnership involving researchers and graduate students in…

In South Africa, the centrality of gender-based violence in the spread of HIV/AIDS has led to many educational efforts to address it. The particular social values that male teachers hold around gender-based violence have been less examined. By focusing on African male teachers' understandings of gender-based violence, this paper highlights the…

The cross-sectional study investigated South African rural high school learners' choice of sexual abstinence in order to be able to develop tailored health education messages. All Grade 9 learners from one class at each of 10 randomly selected rural high schools participated. The Integrated Model for Motivational and Behavioural Change was used to…

Although prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programs are predicated on maternal behavior change, little is known about sociocultural factors affecting maternal-child care practices in this arena. The authors used narrative methods (key informant workshops, questionnaires, focus groups, and case study analysis) to explore how…

The article examines assumptions circulating in development or interventionist discourse concerning the vulnerabilities of AIDS orphans in South Africa. Ongoing ethnographic research, begun in March 2003, with 31 rural children and youth between the ages of 14 and 22, in Magangangozi, KwaZulu-Natal, points to the ways in which global terms may…

Indoor air pollution is responsible for the deaths and illness of millions of young children in developing countries. This study investigated the acceptability (willingness to try) and feasibility (ability to perform) of four indoor air pollution reduction behaviors (improve stove maintenance practices, child location practices, ventilation…

This paper reports on an empirical study that investigated the content of and perceptions about reproductive health information among school teachers and learners in a rural area of South Africa. Qualitative methods were used to assess the dissemination and acceptability of and perceptions about information related to HIV/AIDS, sexuality, family…

Very little research has been done in South Africa on HIV/AIDS and education. This article is a small attempt to plug the gap. The purpose of the research is to investigate the legal and policy provisions and implications regarding HIV/AIDS for rural and township schools in the Mpumalanga district of South Africa. It seeks to answer three…